Leftism -- whether it's communism or globalism or democratic socialism or anything in between -- does nothing, but keep its victims small, weak, dependent, impoverished and enslaved little boys and girls.

Brazil’s Bolsonaro set to visit Trump on March 19 to discuss turmoil in Venezuela: White House

Date: March 9, 2019
Source: CNBC

Food and medicine shortages under Maduro’s rule have caused a flood of Venezuelans to flee across the border into neighboring countries. The U.S. has sent relief supplies to the region but the political and economic crisis shows no signs of ending soon.

According to the White House, Trump and Bolsonaro are also expected to discuss trade issues and military ties between the two countries.

Earlier this year, Bolsonaro said he might allow the U.S. to operate a military base in Brazil as a check against Russia’s influence in Venezuela. Russia supports Maduro and in December sent several military aircraft to Venezuela to participate in joint military exercises.

Trump was one of the first to call and congratulate Bolsonaro after his election victory.

Leftism -- whether it's communism or globalism or democratic socialism or anything in between -- does nothing, but keep its victims small, weak, dependent, impoverished and enslaved little boys and girls.

While the US Department of Labor report on the 20,000 meager job gains in February was disappointing, Tim Mahedy, an economist at Bloomberg, revealed the silver lining.

"... while employment gains in February were well below even the lowest consensus forecast, it is too early to sound the alarm on the labor market. Beyond the usual disclaimer that this is just one month of data, the January number -- already incredibly high -- was revised up and the net upward revision to the prior two months was 12k. Today's report looks more like payback from a strong January gain. It will, and should, raise some eyebrows, but we'll need a couple more months of data before we have a clear picture of where the labor market is headed in 2019."

Other positive details in the Department of Labor report include:

- Employment in professional and business services continued an upward trend
- Health care continues to add jobs
- Durable goods wholesalers led the wholesale trade employment upward trend
- Year-over-year, construction has added over 230,000 jobs
- Manufacturing employment is steady and still rising

Wages are surging and growing at a 3.4% rate. This is the highest growth since the end of 2008.

Leftism -- whether it's communism or globalism or democratic socialism or anything in between -- does nothing, but keep its victims small, weak, dependent, impoverished and enslaved little boys and girls.

It outlines how he was able to one-by-one eliminate all contenders for POTUS in the GOP primaries.

Scott Adams, the creator of the popular cartoon “Dilbert,” transformed himself into a persona non grata in 2016 by exposing how Donald Trump manipulated the media by using sophisticated persuasion techniques. History proved Adams was correct and Trump won the election. As it turns out, Trump was not the bumbling blowhard of CNN’s fever dreams. He was a marketing mastermind whose words went far beyond “resonating” with ordinary Americans—they stuck. Epithets like crooked, lyin’, and low-energy were not just insults, they were silver bullets spoken by a silver tongue. Hillary, Ted, and Jeb didn’t know what hit ’em.

Two years on and Trump’s word-wizardry is as potent as ever—Pocahontas‘s racial fraud is now common knowledge, and Trump’s little rocket man jab arguably set the stage for North Korea’s denuclearization summit. At this point, Trump’s language is indistinguishable from political magic. For example, Trump’s push for “the wall” has turned ardent socialists into laissez-faire economists on the issue of illegal immigration—who cares if migration hurts America’s most vulnerable? We need aliens to grow the economy!

Yes, Trump has caused the Dems to expose themselves for the hypocrites that they are and show America that they are more interested in illegal aliens than Everyman in the US.

This flip-flop has made it clear to ordinary Americans: the Democratic Party cares more about illegal aliens than it does the common citizen.

Another Brick in the Wall
The Democratic Party shut down the government to avoid funding President Trump’s border wall with Mexico. In the meantime, the media has harped incessantly on the wall’s futility. The wall is too expensive, they claim. And in any event, the wall won’t work!

Nonsense. Illegal aliens cost American citizens more in three months than the wall will cost to build in its entirety. What’s more, the available evidence suggests that walls are fantastically effective at arresting migrant flows.

To begin with: how much will Trump’s wall cost to build?

In her informative piece, statistician Liberty Vittert estimates that Trump’s wall will cost some $25 billion to build. Vittert breaks her estimate down as follows:
Size of the wall: 1,150 miles long; 40 feet high; 10 feet deep into the ground; 1 foot wide

Total volume of material: 11.2 million cubic yards

Materials: Approximately $8.7 billion in concrete (97 percent of the materials); approximately $3.6 billion in steel (3 percent of the materials)

Labor: Approximately $12.3 billion (given the labor costs on the original 654 miles of barriers we can assume a conservative 1:1 ratio of materials to labor)

Land acquisition: About 60 percent of the border is privately owned land. While the federal government has the power to take privately owned property for public purposes, it must provide “just compensation.” Based on previous purchases from the 2006-2009 wall construction, the cost at most would be $300,000 per mile acquired, or approximately $200 million altogether.

In total, the actual physical cost of the wall would be about $25 billion.

Conservative and Liberal estimates range from $16 billion to $60 billion. Still a one-time pittance for the billions lost by local, state and federal programs and societal institutions.

The Democrat’s DilemmaIllegal aliens cause economic harm to Americans because they consume far more in government services than they contribute in taxes. We make: they take.

According to a 2017 report from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), illegal aliens and their children cost American taxpayers $135 billion annually—$8,075 per alien per year. These costs are partially offset by taxes collected from illegal aliens, which total around $19 billion. Thus, the net cost of illegal immigrants to American taxpayers is $116 billion annually.

The report also details how those billions are spent. Unsurprisingly, state and local governments bear the majority (two-thirds) of the costs, spending $88 billion annually. The federal government has it relatively easy, spending just $45 billion. This is ironic, given that the federal government created this problem. What’s more, the federal government receives the lion’s share of taxes paid by illegal aliens ($15.4 billion), while state and local governments receive just $3.5 billion in annual taxes from illegal immigrants.

Unsurprisingly, the single greatest cost associated with illegal immigration is educating their children ($46 billion a year). Not only is this expensive, but it reduces school quality for American students. Consider that one-in-five California students is an illegal alien or anchor baby. This crowding is the main reason why California’s public school system is one of America’s worst: California has one of the highest student-teacher ratios and among the lowest per-student spending in America. Government also spends $29 billion on medical expenses, $23 billion on law enforcement, and $9 billion on straight-up welfare programs (some of which actually favor illegal aliens over American citizens).

I have first-hand knowledge and experience of the burden of illegals in the classroom.

Illegal aliens also cost Americans indirectly by sending $30 billion in remittances abroad per year—this is the “hidden tax” that Americans pay for illegal labor.

Functionally there is little difference between these remittances and a maximally inefficient tax. Consider: you hire a gardener who then remits five cents to the government as a sales tax. Now imagine that the government spends this money in Washington building marble monuments—none of the money returns to your community. This tax is maximally inefficient because you get no return for your “investment” in the common weal.

How is this any different than remittances? Americans hire illegal aliens, who then remit a large portion of their income back to their homeland. This money is spent abroad, never to return to your local community. Hypothetically it may return—a decade from now. But realistically, the velocity of money is reduced to nil. In this way, the remittances sent by illegal aliens are effectively a tax that Americans pay for the privilege of hiring “cheap” illegal labor.

For this reason, it is reasonable to bundle the remittances sent by illegal aliens in with America’s tax burden. This means that illegal aliens cost Americans $165 billion annually.

Walls aren't immoral. They are just like the doors on the homes of private citizens. They protect the people inside.

There is plenty of international evidence that walls work. For example, Hungary has claimed that fences along its borders with Croatia and Serbia have stemmed the flow of migrants by 99.7 percent since 2015. Specifically, “the number of successful attempts to illegally cross the border fell from 391,000 in 2015 to 18,236 in 2016 and only 1,184 in 2017” according to Gyorgy Bakondi, the Hungarian prime minister’s chief security advisor. Neighboring Austria refused to build a fence, and now their nation’s social services are being abused by migrants to a terminal degree.

Finally, even left-leaning Politico was forced to admit that walls are effective. Specifically, it found that the construction of a 150-mile long border wall between Israel and Egypt cut the number of illegal border crossings from 16,000 in 2011 to less than 20 in 2016. Basically, Israel’s wall was 100 percent effective.

America could build a highly-effective border wall for some $25 billion. Meanwhile, illegal aliens cost Americans $165 billion worth of taxes and remittances every year. Do the math.

The Americans who voted for Trump did so because he despised the political class as much as the Everyday American. They voted for Trump because they had an idea that he wouldn't take any crap, would get things done and would call out those hypocrites in the swamp who ignore the People and undermine the security of the country. They voted for Trump, despite his imperfections and issues in his private life, because he is the right guy for the job at the right time. I'm betting they do it again in larger numbers in 2020.

Leftism -- whether it's communism or globalism or democratic socialism or anything in between -- does nothing, but keep its victims small, weak, dependent, impoverished and enslaved little boys and girls.

“We’re on a path to having a million, a million people stopped at the border trying to come into the country, and many get here illegally. We have also weaponized the laws in the United States, whereas, with human trafficking, if they bring a child and call themselves a family unit, then they say they can only be held 20 days. That’s what the law is, released into the United States. And they don’t come back for a hearing, and they stay forever. So our laws are being used against us, and the system is broken.”

Drugs, under-staffing of agents and processing areas, slow hearing process, human trafficking, lack of adequate barriers and technology, criminal incursion into US society, heavy burden of expense on cities, states and the federal government in all societal institutions.

CRISIS

Leftism -- whether it's communism or globalism or democratic socialism or anything in between -- does nothing, but keep its victims small, weak, dependent, impoverished and enslaved little boys and girls.

Great, great, great discussion on the media's responsibility in reporting and 'freedom of the press'.

If the media can get away with doing this to a 16 year-old minor, they can do it to anyone.

Leftism -- whether it's communism or globalism or democratic socialism or anything in between -- does nothing, but keep its victims small, weak, dependent, impoverished and enslaved little boys and girls.

The American Bar Association (ABA) has rated all of Trump's recent nominees as either “Qualified” or “Well Qualified.”

Considered left leaning in their politics, the ABA is usually cheered by Democrats as being of the highest of integrity and thoroughness when evaluating judicial nominees. Despite that, not one Democrat voted to confirm any of Trump's appointees. The Resistance still plays BECAUSE TRUMP.

Democrats want activists on the bench who will make up law. Trump has not appointed any LIB activists.

One of Trump's greatest accomplishments has been his continued nomination of great Originalist judges to the courts. In the weeks ahead, there are at least 42 judicial nominees on the Senate calendar.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has been doing a great job getting these nominees through the confirmation process.

I look forward to the continued nominations and confirmations of Originalist Judges to the Federal Court!

Leftism -- whether it's communism or globalism or democratic socialism or anything in between -- does nothing, but keep its victims small, weak, dependent, impoverished and enslaved little boys and girls.

Leftism -- whether it's communism or globalism or democratic socialism or anything in between -- does nothing, but keep its victims small, weak, dependent, impoverished and enslaved little boys and girls.

Leftism -- whether it's communism or globalism or democratic socialism or anything in between -- does nothing, but keep its victims small, weak, dependent, impoverished and enslaved little boys and girls.

‘We’re tired of being right’ about the border, budget director says on Trump’s new wall money request

March 11, 2019
Source: CNBC

Russell Vought, acting White House budget director, said Monday security at the southern U.S. border is “deteriorating by the day,” and he’s blaming Democrats for refusing to approve President Donald Trump’s repeated requests for wall funding.

“This is an area of where we’re tired of being right,” Vought said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box, ” referring to a government report of a record number of migrant families crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

The White House is expected to release Trump’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2020 on Monday. It is expected to seek $8.6 billion from Congress for additional barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border.

That amount would be on top of the funds Trump will redirect from other programs as part of his national emergency, said Vought, who’s minding the Office of Management and Budget after previous OMB head Mick Mulvaney left the agency to become the president’s acting chief of staff.

Trump’s declaration last month, aimed at circumventing Congress to pay for his wall, is currently being challenged by more than a dozen states. The states said Trump is “trying to rob funds that were allocated by Congress legally to various states.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said they had hoped Trump “learned his lesson” after failing to get his wall funding following the partial government shutdown earlier this year.

“Congress refused to fund his wall and he was forced to admit defeat and reopen the government. The same thing will repeat itself if he tries this again,” they said in a joint statement Sunday.

According to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, more than 76,000 migrants crossed the U.S.-Mexico border last month, more than double the number from the same period last year. The figures help Trump’s case for his border emergency, albeit one built around a humanitarian crisis and not security.

Leftism -- whether it's communism or globalism or democratic socialism or anything in between -- does nothing, but keep its victims small, weak, dependent, impoverished and enslaved little boys and girls.

Leftism -- whether it's communism or globalism or democratic socialism or anything in between -- does nothing, but keep its victims small, weak, dependent, impoverished and enslaved little boys and girls.

Thoughts and Prayers for New Zealand before Veto Signing in the Oval Office

=====

Attorney General Bill Barr defends the National Emergency declaration

Remarks made at the veto signing in the Oval Office.

Mr. President, your declaration of an emergency on the southern border was clearly authorized under the law and consistent with past precedent.

As you said, the National Emergencies Act directly authorizes the President, and gives broad discretionary authority to the President, to identify and respond to emergent circumstances that require a decisive response.

And the humanitarian and security crisis we have on the border right now is exactly the kind of emergency that Presidents are permitted to address under the National Emergencies Act.

. . .

STEADY WINNING.

Leftism -- whether it's communism or globalism or democratic socialism or anything in between -- does nothing, but keep its victims small, weak, dependent, impoverished and enslaved little boys and girls.